Synopsis of
Part I:1. Family life in the West and
in the Americas, to such extent as it has survived, is no
longer a source of happiness or comfort in most homes to
either party -- the parents and the children. An experienced
American psychosocial expert has described it as "a jail in
which every one is in solitary confinement, trapped within
their own particular suffering."

2. Children were the first to break
out of this jail, take to vagrancy, juvenile delinquency and
crime, drug and liquor addiction, and the adoption of
hippie-ism as a way of life. What is most heart-breaking is
that suicide rate has risen among the American youth between
the ages of fifteen and twenty-four by 250 per cent in the
last twenty years.

3. Even the parents now make no secret
of their feeling that they want only "such children as could
get along with them." The same American expert says, "More
and more parents are not finding their children a source of
joy and pleasure."

4. Experts on this subject throughout
the world have failed to find a solution.

5. But there is no cause for despair
as Divine guidance is available in the Holy Quran, the
only revealed Book to have escaped interpolations,
corruption or loss of the original text.

6. In the verse from the Holy
Quran quoted in Part
I, the first point made
was that man must obey humbly his Creator, Who alone knows
for what purpose He has created man and by what means man
can achieve the purpose of his creation.

7. Allah is invisibly associated with
each person for his physical, intellectual, moral and
spiritual development. Visibly, the parents are the most
important Divine agents for that development.

Hence, after obedience to Allah,
obedience to the parents comes next. They can be wrong
sometimes but no sane person can question their being the
most unselfish well-wishers of their children for whom they
are willingly prepared to make every possible sacrifice,
even of their lives. And nobody can question that they are
more mature and experienced in the ways of life than the
children. So who can be better guides than they for the
immature and inexperienced teenagers?

It is, however, unfortunate that the
present-day teenagers are by and large in open rebellion
against their parents. They ill-treat, insult and scold
their parents even while living under their roof and
sponging upon them for all their needs and extravagances.
They break their parents loving and tender hearts and
reduce them to tears. The justification for this disgraceful
conduct is stated to be lack of harmony and understanding on
the part of the parents due to the "generation
gap".

The
Generation Gap:This justification is now so
commonly and universally given for the ignominious conduct
of the children that one gets the impression that this gap
has occurred for the first time. It should have been obvious
to even an idiot that this gap, in age, temperament and
outlook has always existed between any two generations. So
if the children put forward this justification it just shows
their ignorance and unreasonableness. But what surprises me
is that even the psychologists, psychiatrists and
sociologists uncritically and unquestioningly have accepted
this excuse and tried to justify it. The situation is too
preposterous for words.

Of course, the generation gap has
always existed. Then why did parents and children live
reasonably amicably in the past? Why not now? The answer
lies in the first commandment in the text I quoted from the
Holy Quran:

And thy Lord has decreed that
you should all obey none but Him [humbly]."
(17:23)

Previously, the parents tried to obey
God according to their respective religion, and they also
taught their children from their infancy to obey
God.

Parents
Revolt:Now most parents do not
themselves believe in God. Even if they profess to do so,
they do not try seriously to obey Him in their daily lives.
There is no question of the children under these
circumstances believing in or obeying God. If the parents
are themselves guilty of having revolted against God (Who is
more Affectionate, more Loving, more Kind, more Providing,
more Beneficent, more Merciful towards every man and woman
than any parents can possibly be towards their children) can
such parents complain if their children have revolted
against them? More so when they have not taught their
children to believe in and obey God?

Previously, in spite of the generation
gap, both the parents and the children believed in, and
obeyed God. So the parents were better human beings and a
better example to their children. In any case, the children
themselves were afraid of offending God and so they obeyed
their parents as directed by God in all religious. There was
the same generation gap previously, the same difference in
age, temperament, and outlook between the parents and their
children. But parents were better human beings and better
example to their children, as they (the parents) believed in
and tried to obey God in their daily lives. And although the
children did not like much of what their parents wanted them
to do, they still obeyed them willy-nilly as they (the
children) also believed in God and were afraid of offending
Him.

Parents to
Blame:So the parents are primarily
responsible for the present situation. They have themselves
to blame if the children give them a taste of what the
Merciful Providence feels when the parents, who are grown-up
and ought to know better, have revolted against God Who is a
thousand times more to them than what they are to their
children.

So the present worldwide
rebelliousness of the youth against their parents cannot be
remedied unless mankind goes back to the obedience of God. I
shudder to say so, but the parents are being punished even
in this life for their own behaviour towards God Who is a
million times more deserving of obedience and love from the
parents than they are from their children.

The
Excellence of the Holy Quran:What a sublime and wonderful
Book the Holy Quran is! In a few words, "And thy Rabb
[fosterer unto perfection] has decreed that you
should all obey none but Him humbly" it has illuminated the
utter darkness that otherwise prevails on this subject.
Neither the parents nor the psychologists, psychiatrists or
sociologists could tell why the youth today was in open
defiance and revolt against its parents and other authority?
Nor did the younger generation know why it had no peace of
mind, nor happiness in their parents homes.

The polytheistic concept of God, as
given to non-Muslims by their religions, could not stand the
acid test of reason which mankind began to apply in this age
of scientific thought to all problems. No wonder that that
concept was rejected in this Age of Reason. Mankind can no
longer be asked to "Believe and do not question."

The only concept of God that can
appeal to reason is monotheistic. And it is well-known, and
admitted even by the critics of Islam, that the Holy
Quran presents the strictest and most perfect
monotheism of all religious teachings.

Monotheism:Monotheism appeals to human
nature as even the polytheists call upon One God when in
distress. Their nature speaks up in spite of their false
credo. Monotheism also appeals to reason as Science has
today proved that the whole universe is governed by one law
and that it must have got One Creator only. In Islam alone
can one find in this very life the True and Only God, Who
speaks in this religion to those who practice Islam fully
and properly. Islam was in fact the religion of all prophets
and all revealed books before they were lost or they
suffered interpolations at human hands. This revealing truth
was given by the Holy Quran. To quote only a few
verses:

Mankind is a single nation.
So Allah raised prophets as bearers of good news [for
those who believe and do good deeds] and as warners
[to those who disbelieve and fall into evil
ways]." (2:213) And,

We sent no messenger before thee
but We revealed to him that there is no God but Me, so
submit to Me." (21:25) And,

The religion with Allah is Islam
[only]." (3:19)

Excellence
of Islam:Since all religions were
originally what Islam is today, we claim no special
privilege for our own religion except that it is complete
guidance for mankind while previous religions were of a
temporary or parochial nature as shown by their own
evidence. But we also maintain that the original religion
given to other nations got lost or became blurred because
the Divine books given to them either got lost completely
(e.g., the Bibles original whether Torah or Injeel are
nowhere to be found) or they suffered from oral transmission
for decades if not centuries, or interpolations played havoc
with them. On the other hand, the Holy Quran was
reduced to writing as soon as it was revealed. It is
admitted even by non-Muslim scholars that the Holy
Quran today is exactly the Divine Book that was
revealed to the Holy Prophet Muhammad. And the Holy
Quran is the only revealed book to claim perfection.
Says Allah in the Holy Quran:

This day have I perfected for
you your religion and completed My favour to you and
chosen for you Islam as a religion. (5:3)

And this is as it should have been,
for the Holy Prophet was to be the last prophet and the Holy
Quran the last revealed Book, so that mankind should
no longer be divided by the appearance of new prophets or
the revelation of new Books.

Since Islam is the only true and
complete religion left, God can be found only in this
religion, proof of which is that God speaks now only to
those who fully practise Islam. Since Islam alone preaches
monotheism in its perfection, and the only concept of God
acceptable to human nature and reason is monotheistic, faith
in God can be revived only when men who have lost that faith
accept Islam.

And until that happens, parents who
have lost faith, or at least a living faith, in God will not
regain it. Nor will they be able to communicate that faith
to their children. And the revolt of the parents against
God, and of the children against their parents, cannot be
put down.

But that may take a long time to come
about. In the meanwhile, the problems that have arisen have
to be tackled. And I will take them up one by one in the
next article Insha Allah and show how the Holy Quran
tackles them.